The Tiger Saga / Hollow Victories

What glory is there in beating the Tiger now? How tainted these victories must seem now that winning golfers must acknowledge that without all of the distractions in his life they might not have beaten him. Yes the victories can not be told ahead of time anymore, but the victories have become hollow. How much better to beat the man without cheating, but that is not what has happened? It can not be denied that he is off his game and that the press and the game itself have profited and kept up the pressure in ways unseen before to any other athlete or star caught cheating on his wife. Where is the coverage of Sandra slinking back to Jessie? Why has their reconciliation gone without fan fair and press coverage? I have told you why in past posts, so I will not repeat myself.

Golf has a credibility problem and it needs Tiger Woods to win again, so that he can be beaten without any excuse. Golf needs to be able to say that it did not ruin Tiger's career and that it is not guilty of fixing his losses and by doing so fixing it for the winners, by virtue of not allowing him to move on and begin to concentrate on playing golf. What a losing scenario right now for golf, no matter what happens to Tiger the game loses. Its viewership is down now that the need to see Tiger lose is diminishing. If Tiger continues to lose the numbers will continue to drop and the game will go back to its relative obscurity and await another great golfer. The big money is about to leave golf as it does in all sports when there is no draw, or head liner if you will.

I think though that this situation has accurately shown America for the hypocrite that it is. It shows that the saying justice means just for us, is true in every sense in America. No righteous indignation for the amount of money sought by his wife or by the conditions she imposed on him for her silence to be found in the press or any where else for that matter. I am saddened that golf has come to this for a couple of reasons. The first is because his sex life although interesting should not have got the coverage that it did. To ruin a man's life and try to take away his future because he got caught cheating, seems like over kill to me.

I found the press coverage to be highly racial in context, one-sided as far as facts go and designed purely to ruin his career and image. It was not just the telling of a story it was assassination of a man, a black man who most of America thought needed to be put back in his place. Secondly it has ruined it for the other golfers who would like to say they beat the Tiger. If he never wins again, he will always be considered one of the greatest golfers in the game. A cloud of doubt will be over every victory as to whether or not Tiger was at his best and why he lost as long as this situation exists and this seems so unfair to golf and the other players.

I think that the good old boys have succeeded in getting their game back by any means necessary, but they got it back the way it was before Tiger came onto the scene. A game that only a few were rich enough to play and understood enough to watch. Minorities will get bored with it and turn away from the game with no heroes of their own to cheer for anymore and the ratings will drop. Sales of golf equipment will go down, but the good old boys will have returned golf to the rich and white. No doubt the next champion will be white, but he will never be able to say that they beat the Tiger straight up and that is really too bad.

Why this was done is clear. By whom it was done is clear. That golf will continue to suffer for it is clear. That America was willing to give up any amount of money, any moral fiber it had left and any doubt left in the world that they are racists is clear. That they just had to get a champion of their own choosing back is clear. That all of this clarity was just to teach Tiger a lesson on race related matters is painfully clear. Those of you in America who have participated in this hunt stand up and take a bow. You can pin the Tiger's skin on your club house wall. Who cares if he was the last of his kind? You hunted him and you killed him, the trophy is yours. How brave you are, all of you against the one of him.

What isn't clear is how they did not know that it would ruin golf, or is it that they did not care as long as they got rid of Tiger Woods and what he was starting to represent to ethnic and minorities of all countries from all back rounds and cultures? The proof that anyone can accomplish anything and enter into any circle if they try hard enough and are good enough and that means the country clubs of the good old boys as well.

To all of you who think that Tiger got what he deserved and that the settlement was fair, I say that the clock has been turned back a hundred years and you as Americans should be ashamed of yourself for the blatant bigotry that you demonstrated with your actions in this situation. You kind of remind me of what the slave owners of the American South said to their slaves during the civil war, "We are not fighting to maintain slavery. We are fighting to maintain our way of life." Would some one tell me what the difference was since their way of life was based on and depended on slavery and all that it stood for? If you answer that honestly than you know that what has happened to Tiger Woods is the same principle, the same reasoning and will end with the same results.